The X-Files Worst Episode Inspired By Fake News
X-Files fans are often divided over the worst episode of the entire series, especially when the revival of the show brought us some serious stinkers. If you narrow your scope to the first season, though, most fans and even the show’s creator can agree that the worst episode is “Space,” which, if it had a Friends-esque title, would have simply been called “the one with all the old NASA footage.”
There are only two things that suck harder than “Space:” the cold vacuum of space itself and the fact that the episode was heavily based on the already-debunked “face on Mars” conspiracy.
Haunted By What He Saw
Before we can dive into this conspiracy (always appropriate when discussing The X-Files), we need to recap what this worst episode of Season 1 was all about. Mulder and Scully are called in to help figure out who is sabotaging shuttle launches at NASA, causing them to meet the astronaut (and Mulder’s childhood hero), Marcus Aurelius Belt.
However, the astronaut is haunted by old memories of an encounter with a face from Mars, and these flashbacks of the past may be the key to understanding the problems plaguing NASA in the present.
Too Ambitious For The Budget
One of the ironies of this being The X-Files’ worst episode in the first season is that it was written by Chris Carter, who (despite his flaws as a showrunner) typically writes very quality adventures for his characters.
In fairness to Carter, many of the problems plaguing this episode had to do with “Space” having a shoestring budget, which is why it relied so heavily on recycled NASA footage and couldn’t even show the astronauts in danger far above the planet. However, one thing that we can squarely blame on Carter is basing this episode on fake news…namely, the whole “face on Mars” thing.
The Famous Photo
Now, if you’re unaware, the face on Mars conspiracy theory comes from imagery captured by Viking 1 back in 1976. The image really does look creepy, but even back then, Viking chief scientist Gerry Soffen insisted that this “face” was just an optical illusion caused by light and shadow. Decades later, higher-resolution imagery proved this was merely an optical illusion, and the so-called face now looks less like a person and more like someone simply punched their favorite baking pan really, really hard.
Asks What If It Was Real
What we’d like to emphasize is that Chris Carter would have been very well aware of authorities claiming that this was just an optical illusion, but that didn’t keep The X-Files creator from basing one of his worst episodes off the idea of this face being real.
Specifically, the episode was inspired by Carter imagining how scary it would be if that face came down to visit him as it did with the astronaut in this episode. Lest we think that this awful episode simply came to the man in a dream, Carter later clarified how much work he put into writing it.
An Episode Based On A Real Conspiracy
According to the showrunner, “Space” was a story that “took a lot of research on my part,” and while we hate to call Carter out, that seems hard to believe when the whole thing was based on an easily debunked conspiracy.
However, considering how much Agent Mulder is based on X-Files creator Chris Carter, it’s only fitting that the show’s worst Season 1 episode was based on earnest belief in a crazy conspiracy. Like Mulder, Carter is primarily guilty of one thing: he wants to believe.
